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Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut4 posts
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1969

Slaughterhouse-Five

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Scan+5Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is considered Vonnegut’s most influential work. Centering around the firebombing of Dresden, the work is partly autobiographical and follows Billy Pilgrim through World War II and time.

My books are being thrown out of school libraries all over the country—because they’re supposedly obscene. I’ve seen letters to small-town newspapers that put Slaughterhouse Five in the same class with Deep Throat and Hustler magazine. How could anybody masturbate to Slaughterhouse Five? […] They find me disrespectful towards their idea of God Almighty. They think it’s the proper business of government to protect the reputation of God. All I can say is, “Good luck to them, and good luck to the government, and good luck to God.”